In Stores Now: The Chaos by the Futureheads

Panels from a comic strip in Motion Picture magazine, December 1912

I refuse to believe that the Futureheads are incapable of writing the kind of songs that their fans want - the creativity and energy in their first two records was real and not the kind of thing that just evaporates. The last time they put an album out, 2008's This Is Not the World, I think I shrugged and said, "I guess this is the just the kind of album the band is interested in making." I'm tempted to go there again, but I'm increasingly having trouble understanding why a band would refuse to play to its strengths. The songs aren't bad, either, but they are arranged and produced in a way that seems to intentionally try to make them sound like mainstream guitar pop. The guitar sounds on The Chaos are bafflingly generic-sounding, for instance. I just don't get that.

The Futureheads can still make me smile, though. After an opening title track leaden with the clunky hard-rock moves the band has been showcasing lately, the Futureheads deliver two solid singles, "Struck Dumb" and "Heartbeat Song". Each has a nice, jumpy riff and catchy melody that work well together in spite of the album's dull production. The second half of the album has another duo of catchy songs, "I Can Do That" and "Sun Goes Down", but these ones are more simple and straightforward, with anthemic one-line choruses (a la "We Cannot Lose" from the Area EP). The songs in between aren't wholly uninteresting, but they're weighed down with hard rock flourishes where the band should be focusing on using their unpredictable pop sensibility and talent for cool harmonies. For example, "Dart at the Map" is a great song and features some of the album's most interesting lyrics, but it devolves into a wanky guitar jam halfway through and never goes back to its soaring chorus. Why, Futureheads, why?

For me, The Chaos's most interesting song might be "Living on Light", a 90-second a capella track hidden at the end of the record. Why put that there? It says to me, "Yeah, we can still do that thing you like, but we're not gonna." It's kind of a dick move to post a hidden track with a review of an album, so I'm going to share the album's second best song, "Struck Dumb", instead. And then I'm going to go back to waiting for this great band to decide to start doing the thing they're great at again.

"Struck Dumb" by The Futureheads